


What Shadows Might Linger Still

by TrishaCollins



Series: Knight Errant [6]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Ardyn uses FLIRT, Gen, it is not very effective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-12-18 10:06:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18247646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrishaCollins/pseuds/TrishaCollins
Summary: Cor deals with a most unwelcome visitor as best he can.





	What Shadows Might Linger Still

It felt like too much of his life was spent patrolling the old wall, moving along it to make sure that none of the Daemons had thought to challenge it. 

“Sir!” Someone called from up ahead, he quickened his pace, worrying about a breakthrough. 

It wasn’t. Well, not exactly. There was a man sitting on the ground, dressed in a torn black jacket, hair fallen forward around his face. He smelled like whore’s piss and alcohol. 

The soldier who had found him was holding a sleeve to his nose, which was a mistake he would correct later. 

If only because the man – not a man, his senses reminded him. Never presume that the Accursed was just a man. 

“Where is the boy?” The Accursed slurred, clearly too drunk to wind his way back to his feet. 

“You look like shit and you smell disgusting.” He observed, pragmatic. 

The accursed waved it away in a pass that might have been jaunty if it weren’t so broken doll. Disjointed and painful. “Never mind that, my good man. Where is the boy king? Oh I never bothered to learn his name…”

The accursed vomited, he took a step back to prevent any of it from splattering. It was liquid and chunks of blackness, reeking of booze. Ifrit’s balls, the man had practically pickled himself. “Regis?”

“Yes. That one. Mors son.” The filthy sleeve was stroked with fingertips before the man summoned a flask in a flash of the crystal’s magic, taking a long draught from it. “The young king.”

“Gone.” He crouched down. “Into the crystal.”

“He was meant to be the father….” The Accursed muttered to himself, moving to take another drink.

He took the flask out of his fingers, capping it and slipping it into his pocket. “He would not allow it to be Noctis.” He told him, quiet. Still angry, still furious in fact that Regis had left them all behind.

But understanding as well.

The Accursed pouted at him, lips cracked and bloody. Probably hadn’t eaten in a good long while. “I was drinking that.”

“Sure. You’re drunk.” A pointless observation, he wasn’t sure if the man would even remember this conversation once he slept off the drink. “Are you here for ruin?”

The Accursed laughed. “I am already ruined. I’m a monster…”

He watched this sad excuse for a demon, a children’s story. The reason for all of this, the cause, if legand and Regis were to be believed. “Then what do you want?”

“I was meant to spread darkness. That is what they chose for me. Yet look, here it is all around us, with nary a finger lifted on their behalf. I thought I would have longer…” It was a sad sort of confession, rambling and mostly nonsensical. “I have already had so long, but life…it was nothing. I existed, dreaming, in that prison. And now I am awake and I would surely like to go back to sleep. But I am to die on their account, to shed my blood so that what they have done might be undone.”

He frowned, trying to piece together what the man was talking about. 

“It’s hard to think of anything with these fumes around us.” He said, finally, keeping his voice measured before he offered the Accursed a hand. “You need a shower and a change of clothes, maybe a meal and a bed if you behave.”

“Behave?” The Accursed asked, peering up at him with eyes that dilated too far. “What would you like me to do?”

“Just keep your weapons sheathed in my camp, and try not to destroy any generators if you want a hot bath.”

That seemed to cheer the man, still drunk as he was, and the hand he offered was accepted. He nodded to the soldier. “Run ahead, have a bath drawn up and find some clothes.” 

The Accursed was lighter than he expected, staggering to his feet with no more weight than a bag of bones assuming the shape of a living man. 

“How did you get here?” He asked, lending his shoulder in support.

“Why- walked, I suppose?” The Accursed patted his shoulder. “You are a good man. There are so few left.”

He rolled his eyes. “I’ll take that into consideration.”

“Might I have my flask back?” The Accursed ask, fumbling at the pocket.

“Not until you bathe. I won’t speak to you.”

Another pout. “But…who will, if you will not? Verstael is dead, his monsters ate him, and the Oracle died in the summoning…..I shall be all alone again.”

“…what?” He blinked at the man, caught off guard. 

“I misjudged the boy, I did not think he would do that.” Off again, mostly muttering to himself as they walked. 

“Marshal, sir.” Nyx saluted, managing to keep his eyes on him and not the barely upright demon at his side. “Do you require any assistance?”

“No. Keep everyone back, I’ll handle him. Have a meal brought.” 

“And more wine.” The Accursed said, slumping on his shoulder.

It would have been a problem if he weighed more – or if he wasn’t entirely used to hauling Clarus as dead weight from time to time. As it was, his height just made him an awkward burden. “How are you this tall?”

“Somnus complained of it too.” Was the answer.

The soldier he had sent ahead saluted and then obeyed his orders to stay away, darting off into the camp. 

Stripping the Accursed of his clothes was more difficult than he had expected, in places the clothing seemed to have grown into his skin, in others, tacky substances held the fabric in place. He half tore the clothes to rags before he managed to get him more or less naked and herded into the bath.

“You know, most leer more. Verstael did….” The Accursed mumbled.

“You’re drunk.” He returned, fetching soap and rags. “And you stink.”

The Accursed chuckled. “Prefer a cleaner prize, eh, commander?” 

“I would prefer no prize at all.” He doused the man with soap. 

“Not interested in men? I can look like anyone, you know. A woman, a man….anything at all.” The way his neck lolled might have been meant to be alluring, but in his opinion it only made it seem broken. Too loose, too flexible. A corpse that had dug itself out and paraded around as though it still lived.

He rolled his eyes, soaping the Accursed’s hair. “Nothing you could become would interest me in the least.”

Something curious settled over the face as he scrubbed, permitted to dunk him twice before he was satisfied with the cleanness.

“How long did it take him?” The accursed asked as he was dressed.

“Take who and take what?” He asked, tightening the clasps.

“The king, to choose to enter the crystal.” The Accursed was turning, trying to keep him in the line of sight. “How long did it take him to choose death rather than sacrifice?”

“He called me to his office as soon as it was revealed, they left within weeks to complete their goal. He entered the crystal as soon as he was able.” He narrowed his eyes. “if you mean to harm Nocti-“

Fingers pressed to his lips. “Shhhh.”

He stepped back out of range. “What are you about here? Because if you mean harm, then we will send you on your way.”

“They are angry. It is so….alluring, their anger. I tried to defy them and failed.” A hand touched his shoulder. “Always they set me back on my path.” Caressed down his arm. “And now? Now the path is nothing. What is my purpose?” 

He eyed the fingers. “Whatever you choose, and I would thank you to consider one that does not require me to waste resources in destroying you.” He twisted his hand, gripping the Accursed wrist and dragging the man to a bed. “Sleep on it.”

“Not going to toss me in jail and forget about me?” There was something truly fearful in those eyes, something he wasn’t quite sure he understood entirely. 

“I don’t have men to take you to Angelguard, if that is what you are asking. Nor the magic required to seal you. Which is why I would prefer to find some other path between us.” He told him, honest and serious. “So rest, and accept it as a step towards peace in this cursed night.”

Those eyes remained fixed on him, sad and tired. 

He could almost pity him, if he wasn’t aware just what he was looking at.

“Aera…” The man whispered, and closed his eyes. 

He watched him for a long moment, the slow rise and fall of his chest, the still disheveled nature of his being. 

He smelled better at least, even if he couldn’t make himself trust the Accursed presence without more sober compliance. 

Regis had warned him about this man, this creature.

But all he currently saw was a sad drunk with no purpose in his life save what the gods had demanded of him. A being trapped by fate as much as they and Regis had been.

Well, damn the gods anyway. If the Accursed would join with them against the night, then so be it. If he would not…well, they would find some way to contain him and prevent him from ravaging them further.


End file.
